The protective mucous membrane in the gut normally prevents powerful digestive enzymes from entering the the blood stream. When this membrane breaks down, however, these enzymes can leak into the body, triggering a cascade of reactions that result in widespread inflammation and damage.

It is this, suggests Schmid-Schonbein and a colleague Feank DeLano, that leads to high blood pressure and diabetes. A crucial component of this process are molecules called matrix-degrading metalloproteinase (MMP), which are widely found in the blood of people with metabolic problems.

Schmid-Schonbein's idea is that the cascade, and hence the damage, can be prevented by a class of drugs that inhibit the action of MMP. He believes that using MMP inhibitors to treat and even prevent tissue inflammation and organ damage by normalizing the amount of MMP in the blood, thereby reducing blood pressure, preventing damage to cell membranes and reducing the levels of oxygen free radicals in the blood stream.

Schmid-Schonbein's ideas go way beyond conventional treatments for diabetes and high blood pressure and obviously need to be backed up by extensive clinical trials before their efficacy can be judged. But his patent offers an interesting insight into the latest thinking on how to tackle an epidemic that affects many in the western world.